$1k In A Day: Learning to Trade and Travel with Teri

March 8, 2022August 27, 2020

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2020 has been a wild ride, but August, in particular, has been mind-blowing for me, in a positive way. I oscillated between wanting to share this journey and yell it from the rooftop, and feeling unsure because it all feels too-good-to-be-true. Alas, wealth should be shared, and I wish there was a testimonial like this when I was deciding on the course. So, here we are, my journey of learning to Trade and Travel with Teri Ijeoma of Invest with Teri.

Pandemic-Induced Life Questions

During Quarantine in April, Xav and I began asking the hard questions about our life priorities. The endless days of sitting on Zoom calls in separate rooms, while trapped in a concrete box of our apartment wasn’t the life we had envisioned when we left our lucrative corporate grind in Shanghai.

The brainstorming began: Remodel a dilapidated farmhouse in France? Learn to bake professionally and open a bakery in Taiwan? Build a passive home and living off-grid somewhere beautiful? We watched many YouTube videos about various alternative lifestyles during Quarantine while baking a lot of bread and cooking loads of food.

Yet, the question kept coming back to: how would we make money to support these idyllic lifestyles? After all, while we have financial freedom, we aren’t financially independent. Income is still necessary. We didn’t have an answer. When our lives resumed in late April, we put those wild ideas on the back-burner.

Having a strong desire to go learn professional baking, then move to #Taiwan and open a café/bakery? ??‍?

Is social distancing making me totally crazy, or am I being led to my dream life? ?
— Wanderlust Wendy (@wanderlustwlee) March 30, 2020

Signs from the Universe

On May 1st, an email from Side Hustle Nation came into my inbox about a lady named Teri, teaching people to trade stocks for income. The fact her course is titled, “Trade and Travel” – two of my favorite activities – immediately intrigued me. I listened to the interview, then watched her free webinar on making $1,000 in a day. Given the bad reputation that trading stock is glorified gambling, I was highly skeptical. It felt too good to be true.

Yet, I was curious. I’ve dabbled in investments since college. When I bought my first Mac in 2006, I also bought ten shares of AAPL at $26 per share. They’ve served me well. I recognize the power of individual stock investment in reliable companies. With a healthy dose of skepticism, I decided to have a go on my own, applying Teri’s high-level teaching in the free-webinar, aiming 1% return a day, and having a risk management plan. Three months later, despite the booming stock market, I only made $36. But hey, at least I didn’t lose money! I chalked it up as a failed experiment.

In June, Xav received news of an impending layoff. Thanks to our financial cushion, he was happy as a clam. The layoff came with a decent severance, and he was ready to leave the job anyway. In July, we went on a fantastic two-week journey through Northern Vietnam. The blissful nature led us to question once again why we are living in chaotic Saigon and what ways we could generate income without an office job.

Jumping In With Both Feet

During our trip, I thought about Teri’s trading course again. I began binge-listening through dozens of her interviews on various podcasts. Her story is compelling and authentic, and her focus on teaching others the skill to trade as ministry aligns with my value to increase wealth to give back to the world.

I decided to sign up to her $2000 Trade and Travel course, and view it as another professional training. After all, I’ve been collecting education my entire life to increase earning potential, from an expensive grad degree to a coding camp, all with varying degrees of usefulness. What’s another class? Best case scenario, I learn a new skill to generate income, and worst case, I obtain new knowledge without making a dime (wouldn’t be the first time).

At the end of July, I signed up for the course. Teri has been on a mission to teach 1,000 students the skills to realized $1,000 gains in a single trading day. Again, it sounded too good to be true, but fellow students in the private Facebook group are sharing their proven wins left and right. So, with my birthday coming up in early September, I treated this as a birthday gift to myself, aiming to reach $1k in a Day milestone in a month.

$1,000 In A Day

The course is self-paced, with a weekly group coaching call. I binge-watched through the entire curriculum over two days. My finance training and background certainly gave me a leg-up in grasping the content quickly. I immediately created an Excel model, and diligently followed Teri’s strategies to chart stocks and recognize patterns.

In a simulated account, I practiced the strategies and placed trades with an account balance of $25,000, the minimum balance required to bypass day-trading restrictions. My initial target was to reach 1% return a day. To my utter surprise, I unlocked the $1,000 in a day milestone within just FIVE trading days. Mind Blown.

Within 5 trading days, I realized my first $1,000 in a day gains in a simulated account with fake money!

I couldn’t believe how well Teri’s strategies worked. A small part of me thought perhaps it’s just beginner’s luck. Yet, within 11 days of trading, I managed three $1k days in my simulated account – some even when the overall market was trending downward. A mere week later, I reached the $1k in a day milestone in my live account with real money!

At this point, I still had three weeks to my birthday, so I leveled up my goal to realize $5k of gains over the next three weeks. The $5k would break even for the course and also cover the upgrade to the VIP program, where Teri teaches advanced strategies to realize consistent gains when the overall market is trending downward.

Building Generational Wealth via Invest With Teri and The Come Up Series – a follow-up post on my Trade and Travel VIP journey and beyond.

You Win Some, You Lose Some, And Then You REALLY Win

In between, there were days when I lost money, all as result of not following the rules. Trading in a live account with real money is psychologically different. After one sizable loss of nearly $3k in a single day, making every mistake in the book, I buckled down. Follow the rules! I told myself. Don’t try to outsmart, because you cannot. With this renewed focus, I recuperated my losses the next day.

Then, the magic truly happened. On the following day, with confidence replenished, I realized over $5k of gains in a single trading day. It was jaw-dropping. When I set the goal, I had aimed for a cumulative $5k gain. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could make that in one single day! It’s still mind-blowing to me that I could achieve these milestones within just one single month. That 1% per day goal I thought was so ludicrous? I now know it’s possible to achieve consistently.

Sky is the limit. My next goal is to upgrade to the VIP course, and give 10% of my trading earnings to charitable giving, with a target to give away $10k by New Year’s Eve!

A jaw-dropping single day gains in my live account, with real money!

Not A Get Rich Quick Scheme

While I saw success within a short time, I must emphasize that active trading is not a get-rich-quick scheme. This type of attitude is how things can go terribly wrong. In fact, the days that I’ve lost money have all been because I got a tad greedy and didn’t follow the rules. One of the most valuable parts of this course is how Teri addresses all the various emotional pitfalls that lead traders into oblivion, like this sad story.

Active stock trading with well-planned risk management, however, is a legitimate way to generate income. The critical word here is active. This income stream isn’t passive. It requires time and energy to chart graphs, calculate price levels, and have the immense discipline to avoid falling prey to our emotions.

Calculated risk requires calculation, but the reward can be fruitful. I aim not to place any trade without having my Excel model in front of me, telling me all the right price levels with corresponding risks and rewards. The days I’ve lost is when I got lazy or greedy, trading without my system.

New Path to Financial Independence

This course has opened my eyes to the world of the ultra-rich and why so many of the world’s wealthiest people are from the world of finance. This skill is a well-kept secret that ordinary individuals aren’t privy to. Instead, we are told to buy-and-hold – a good strategy that I still adhere to for most of our investments.

Don’t get me wrong; I am still a firm believer that low-cost index funds are the best passive way to generate wealth for everyday individuals. Despite this new skill, I will trade only up to 10% of my net worth – treating this skill merely as another diversification strategy. The methods are data-driven, and they work, but the active act of trading involves the inherent risk of human emotions.

Update: I wrote a follow-up post on how I took Teri’s teachings to level up my path toward financial independence – Building Generational Wealth via Invest with Teri and The Come Up Series.

What Makes a Good Stock Trader?

Teri had covered this question in one of the podcast interviews, and this struck a chord. She said that a person would do well in her class if s/he is curious about learning new things, has discipline, and can follow directions. That’s it. Sounds simple, but that last part of following directions, is harder than it sounds. Again, it’s those emotions that get to even the best traders.

Her remarks reminded me of my final semester in college. Finance majors were required to take a financial management class with Dr. Alderson – an infamously tough professor. On the first day of class, he told us that if any of us had played sports or mastered a musical instrument, then we have what it takes to do well – all it takes is the persistence and discipline to practice mastering the concept, showing up to class, and paying attention. The piano player in me thought, “can’t be that bad.” Indeed, it just takes time and effort.

Over the past month, I’ve spent every minute of my free time fine-tuning the skill to trade stocks for income. The key to my success thus far, I believe, is that I genuinely love Excel spreadsheets and recognizing patterns on charts. On top of my ability to mostly follow the rules, of course. I do believe anyone who could follow directions can do this. Though, if you tend to enjoy numbers, graphs, and charts, the experience would undoubtedly be more enjoyable.

Supportive Trading Community

Other than the sound strategies, the best part about the Trade and Travel course is the private Facebook group for students. It’s incredibly inspiring to see everyday individuals, large part minorities who typically are not invested in the stock market, sharing their wins, and how trading is changing their lives.

Last week, a fellow classmate shared his story of making merely $800, working 10-hour shifts for Amazon amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That drove him to the course. He shared his win of over $3,000 gains in a single day, trading Amazon stock. That must have felt so great!

It’s a fantastic feeling to be in a group of people talking about money openly, sharing the attitude that there is enough for everyone – a true win-win scenario. We celebrate wins together and console on the inevitable losses, but at the end of the day, the group lifts us all into a higher realm of financial freedom.

Paying It Forward

I’ve kept this blog for over a decade as a way to pay-it-forward. Discovering Trade & Travel has also allowed me to keep this blog authentic without all the gimmicks required for monetization (and finally go ads-free!). If this post has helped you ultimately decide to pursue the course, here’s my referral link for Trade and Travel, and link for the VIP Investor Program. If you sign up through the links, I get a 10% commission.

Though, to be clear, I didn’t write this post for that commission. I simply want everyone to learn this skill! In the spirit of keep giving back, 50% of the commission will go towards GiveDirectly. Also, I will offer those who use the referral link a free one-hour call to answer any trading-related questions – including sharing all the tools that I’ve built to help me succeed! Please contact me after you’ve signed up! Until the traveling portion of Trade and Travel resumes, I’ll continue to master the trading skills and share the wealth.

I hope you will take some time to learn Teri’s story, and at the very least, think about stock trading differently. For me, it’s been immensely useful to divorce the image of Wall Street greed from active stock trading. It’s an incredible feeling of empowerment, knowing that the system can be leveraged to not only generate income but also do a lot of good in the world!

Update: amount to date allocated to GiveDirectly – $17,348. Thank you! ?

Teri’s Interviews that I Love

Teri’s Instagram Linktree with her latest interviews and webinars
How to Trade and Travel with Teri Ijeoma | Level Up Podcast
I made $35,000 in one day, with Teri Ijeoma of Invest With Teri | The Millionaire Podcast
Do You Want to Make $1,000 a Day AND Trade With a Purpose? | Karen Hunter Show
Break Out Of Your Comfort Zone By Embracing Your Passion With Teri Ijeoma | Life Skills That Matter

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